Trinity College Dublin bucks trends with surplus but warns of rising costs across third level – The Irish Times

Trinity School Dublin has bucked a pattern of deficits throughout many larger schooling establishments by recording a surplus of virtually €4 million final yr.

However the college says the sector stays underneath “enormous strain” from rising prices and underfunded public sector pay will increase. Whereas its annual outcomes have but to be printed, a monetary assertion reflecting a €3.9m surplus has been authorized by Trinity’s board.

Whereas Trinity flagged a projected deficit to the Greater Training Authority final yr, the college’s provost Dr Linda Doyle mentioned it was capable of file a surplus for the 2022/23 yr because of “cautious value administration, elevated revenue and decrease power costs on common than had been anticipated”.

Nonetheless, she warned that the broader larger schooling sector stays underneath “enormous strain” from rising prices.

“The general public service pay agreements, that are very welcome, should be funded from our already tight budgets until the extra help we obtained final yr is repeated,” she mentioned.

Ms Doyle mentioned there was “no escaping the fact” that Authorities must honour the dedication it made to offer annual core funding of €307 million for the upper schooling sector, made underneath the then minister for larger schooling, now Taoiseach, Simon Harris.

“Bridging this hole would give Irish universities the chance to enhance much-needed companies for college students and employees and convey us according to our worldwide friends,” she mentioned.

The excess for 2022/23 compares to a web deficit of €200,000 at Trinity within the earlier yr.

General, universities are projected to run mixed deficits this yr of about €15 million as some faculties battle to deal with rising prices. About eight publicly funded larger schooling establishments have been projected to be within the pink final yr based mostly on monetary projections offered to the Greater Training Authority (HEA).

A number of the greatest spending issues are centered at TU Dublin, College School Cork (UCC) and College of Limerick (UL). All three of those establishments are the topic of scrutiny by the authority after monetary problems with concern got here to gentle over current months.

Schools say they’re dealing with value pressures resulting from a number of components together with rising prices, public sector pay will increase, delayed expenditure linked to the Covid-19 pandemic and rising employees numbers on foot of rising enrolments.

Whereas the Authorities maintains that enough funding has been made accessible to the upper schooling sector, universities argue that there’s a hole of between €25-€30 million in what they obtained in State funding versus the true value of public sector pay will increase.

All establishments working deficits have confirmed that they’ve enough money assets to satisfy their liabilities in full till the tip of this yr.

A lot of the priority inside the HEA over monetary efficiency pertains to “unplanned” deficits, the place universities unexpectedly discover themselves within the pink.

This was the scenario at UCC, for instance, which is known to have flagged issues with schooling authorities that it was on target to file a €11.2 million deficit final yr, which was attributed to “rising prices”. It has since launched a cost-containment plan aimed toward containing a deficit this yr to €16 million adopted by a return to a surplus of €2 million subsequent yr.